The Great Miss Driver

He heard me all through with an impassive face – even his brows had returned to their natural level. "Miss Driver is a young woman herself. She will probably marry."

"It is possible, and therefore she limits her legal obligation to the amount I have mentioned – approximately one half of her present income. I am, however, to inform you in confidence that it is her fixed intention not to marry, and that it is practically certain that she will not depart from that resolution – in which case the ultimate arrangement which I have indicated will come into effect."

The bribe was out – and fewest possible words spent over it! Now – how would he take it?

His manner showed nothing. He sat silent for a minute or two. Then he said, "It's certainly princely." He smiled slightly again. "I think I must apologize for my word 'provision.' This is a very large fortune, Mr. Austin – or seems like it to poor folks like the Laceys."

"It's a very considerable fortune. As I have said, Miss Driver regards Margaret Octon as in the place of her own daughter. Miss Driver thought it only right that these circumstances should be placed before you as possibly bearing on the decision you felt it your duty to make yourself, or to recommend to your son."

"Why does she do it?" he asked abruptly.

"I've just given you the reason which I was directed to give. I wasn't commissioned to give any other. She regards Miss Octon in the light of an only child – the natural object of her bounty and, in due course of time, her natural successor."

"We met once at Hatcham Ford, Mr. Austin," he said abruptly. "You remember? I think you knew pretty well the state of things then existing between Miss Driver and myself? I've charged you with possessing that knowledge before. That piece of knowledge may enable you to understand how the present proposition affects me. This isn't all love for Margaret Octon."

"No, not all love for Margaret. But now you're asking me for my opinion, not for my message."

"I didn't mean it as a question. But I see that you agree with me. Then you may understand that I can feel no gratitude for this offer. It – and consequently the arrangement of which it is a part – would transform everything here. It would accomplish the task which I haven't even had the courage to try to accomplish. It would blot out my great failure. But, coming whence it does and why it does, I can feel no gratitude for it."

"It would be very far from Miss Driver's thoughts to expect anything of the kind."

Suddenly he pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and went to the window, impatiently letting one of the ugly brown blinds fly up to the ceiling by a tug at its cord. He stood there two or three minutes. His back was still toward me when he spoke again.

"I've been a steward more than an owner – a caretaker, I should rather say. This would make my son and his son after him owners again. It's the restoration of our house." His voice sank a little. "And it would come through her and Leonard Octon!" Silence came again for a while; then he turned round and faced me. "I've no right to decide this question. She has taken the decision out of my hand by this. I have memories, resentments, what I think to be wrongs and humiliations. Perhaps I have cause for thinking so."

"I wasn't sent here to deny that, Lord Fillingford. If that hadn't been so, not I should have been here, but she who sent me."

"And so," he went on slowly, "I'm no judge. I should sin against my conscience if I were to judge. The question is not for me – let her go to Amyas himself."

I was glad at heart – we had escaped bullying; only in one moment of temper had I hinted at it, and that moment seemed now far away. It was easy to see the defects of this man, and easier still to feel them as a vaguely chilling influence. His virtues were harder to see and to appreciate – his justice, his candor of mind, his rectitude, the humility beneath his pride.

"Lord Lacey attaches enormous importance to your opinion. I know that as well as you do. Can't you go a little further?"

"I thought I had gone about as far as could be expected."

"Not quite. Won't you tell your son what you would do if you were in his place?"

"I think you'd better not ask me to do that. I'm less sure of what I should do than I am of what he will do. What he'll do will, I think, content you – I might think too much of who his father is, and of who her father was, and from whose hand these splendid benefits come. I think I'd better not advise Amyas."

"But you'll accept his decision? You'll not dissuade him?"

"I daren't dissuade him," he answered briefly and turned his back on me again. He added in a tone that at least strove to be lighter, "My grandchildren might rise up and call me cursed! But if she looks for thanks – not from this generation!"

For the first time – though I sacrifice finally my character for morality by that confession – I was genuinely, in my heart and not in my pretenses or professions, inclined to regret the night at Hatcham Ford – the discovery and the flight. All said, he was a man. After much conflict they might have come together. If she had known then that it was man against man – not man against name, title, position, respectability – why, the case might have seemed changed, the issue have been different. But he was so seldom able to show what he was. He had no spontaneous power of expressing himself; the revelation had to be wrung out by force —peine forte et dure; he had to be pressed almost to death before he would plead for himself, for his case, for what he felt deep down within him. All that was too late to think about – unless some day, in the future, it might avail to make them decently friendly – avail against the deep wound to pride on one side, against the obstinate championship of the dead on the other.

But to-day he had opened himself frankly enough to absolve me from formalities.

"Gratitude isn't asked. I imagine that the proper forms would be."

He turned to me very quickly. "I'm on terms of acquaintance with a lady, or I'm not. If I am, I hope that I omit no courtesy."

"Nor give it grudgingly?"

"She told you to say that?"

"No – nor some other things I've said. But I know how she'd take any paring down of what is requisite." I ventured a smile at him. "You would have to call, I think, to-morrow." I let that sink in. "And Lady Sarah a few days afterwards."

He gave a short laugh. "You're speaking of matters of course, if this thing is decided as it looks like being."

I got up from my chair. "I go back with the promise of your neutrality?" I asked.

"Neutrality is surrender," he said.

"Yes, I think so. Young blood is in the question. Besides – as you see yourself – the prospect may to a young man seem – rather dazzling."

"Let me alone, Mr. Austin, let me alone, for God's sake!"

"I go the moment you wish me to, Lord Fillingford. I carry my answer with me – isn't it so?"

Wonderfully recovering himself – with the most rapid transition to an orderly self-composure – he came and sat down at his table again.

"I shall see my son on this matter directly after lunch. It will be proper to convey immediate news of our decision to Breysgate Priory. I shouldn't like – in the event we both contemplate – to appear tardy in paying my respects to Miss Driver. At what hour to-morrow afternoon do you suppose that it would be convenient to her to receive me?"

"I should think that about four o'clock would be quite convenient," I answered.

With that, I rose to my feet – my mission was ended. Neither quite as we had hoped, nor quite as we had feared. We had not bullied – we had hardly threatened. If we had bribed, we had not bribed the man himself. He – he himself – would have had none of us; for him – himself – the betrayal at Hatcham Ford governed the situation and his feelings about it. But he saw himself as a trustee – a trustee for unborn generations of men, born to inherit – yet, as things stood, born more than half disinherited! There was no telling what Jenny thought of. Very likely she had thought of that, when she made her bribe no mere provision – nor even merely that "handsome thing" – but the new bestowal of a lost ancestral heritage. Amid profound incompatibilities, they both had broad views, long outlooks – a large conception of the bearings of what men do. Jenny had not been so wrong in thinking of him – nor he in thinking that he could take her with what she brought. Powerfully had Octon, in his rude irresistible natural force, and its natural appeal, broken the current, real if subtle, between them.

I went up to him, holding out my hand. We had won the victory; I did not feel very triumphant.

"Mr. Austin," he said, as he shook hands, "we make a mistake if we expect not to have done to us as we do to others, I learn that as I grow older. Do you understand what I'm at, when I say this?"

"Not very well, I confess, Lord Fillingford."

"Once I went to Miss Driver, holding what I have – my old name, my old place, my position, my title – I can't think of anything they've given me except care and a hopeless sense of my own inadequacy – holding those in my hand and asking for her money. I see now the opposite thing – she comes holding the money, and asks for what I have. I didn't have my way. She'll have hers."

"There are the young people." It was all I had to say.

"Ask her to leave me a little of my son. Because there's no doubt. You've taken away all my weapons, Mr. Austin."

"I wish you'd had this conversation with her – you two together."

He relapsed into his formal propriety of demeanor. "I shall, I trust, give Miss Driver no reason to complain of any want of courtesy – if Amyas persists."

"You've accepted it that he will."

"Yes – that's truth," he said. "I may be expected at Breysgate to-morrow at four."

"Then try to make it happy!"

He gave me a slow pondering look. "There is much between me and her – not all against her nor for me. I've come to see that. I'll do my best, Mr. Austin."

He escorted me to the door, and walked in silence with me down a broad walk, bordered on either side by stately trees, till we came to his gates. He looked up at the venerable trees, then pointed to the tarnished coronets that crowned the ironwork, itself rather rusty.

"A fresh coat of paint wanted!" he observed with his chilly smile – and I really did not know whether his remark involved a reference to our previous conversation or not.

CHAPTER XXVI

PEDIGREE AND BIOGRAPHY

The forms were observed most punctiliously; but before the forms began came Lacey, hot from his talk with Fillingford, amazed, almost bewildered, protesting against Jenny's excessive munificence, passionately anxious that she should be sure that he had not foreseen it.

"And how can you believe I never thought of it, when it's just what I ought to have thought of – just the sort of thing you would be sure to want to do?"

"I haven't forgotten your appalling misery, if you have," she retorted, smiling. "I was really afraid you'd kill yourself before Austin had time to get to the Manor. It was quite convincing as to your innocence of my wicked designs, believe me!"

"But I can't possibly accept it," he declared. "It's so overwhelming!"

"You're not asked to accept a farthing, so you needn't be the least overwhelmed. I give it to Margaret. No bride is to go from Breysgate without a dowry, Amyas. Come, you'd put up with ten times as much overwhelming for her sake." She threatened him playfully: "You can't have her with any less – so take your choice!"

"Well, we shall always know who it is that we owe everything to." He took her hand and kissed it. She looked at his handsome bowed head for a moment.

"If you ever do think of anybody in that sort of way, try not to think of me only."

Standing upright again, he looked at her gravely. "I know what you mean." He flushed a little and hesitated. "I hope you know that – that he and I parted – that day – in a – a friendly way?"

"I know it – and I'm very glad," she said. "That's all about the past, Amyas, in words at least. Keep your thoughts as kind as you can – and be very gentle to Margaret when she wants to talk about him. That's a good return to me, if you want to make any. And love my Margaret."

"My love is for her. My homage is for you always – and all the affection you'll take with it," he said soberly. "It's little she'd think of me if that wasn't so," he added with a smile.

Then came the forms, but the first of them – Fillingford's coming – was no mere form to Jenny. She was not afraid or perturbed, as she had been about meeting Alison – she had done with confession – but she was grave, and preoccupied with it. She bade me look out for him and bring him to her in the library. "You must leave us alone, and we'll join you at tea in the garden afterwards. Take care that Margaret is there when we come."

Nothing can be known of what words passed between them, but Jenny gave a general description of their conversation – it was not a long one, lasting perhaps fifteen minutes. "He met me as if he'd never met me before, he talked to me as if he'd never talked to me before. He was a most courteous new acquaintance, hoping that our common interest in the pair would be a bond of friendship between us. I followed the same line – and there we were! But I couldn't have done it of myself. I tried to thank him for that – that sort of message you gave me from him. The first word sent him straight back into the deepest recesses of his shell – and I said, 'Come and see Margaret.'"

"Oh, you'll make better friends than that some day." I had no strong hope of my words coming true.

"You seem to have got nearer to him than I ever could. His shield's up against – Eleanor Lacey! But he was kind to Margaret, wasn't he?"

Yes, he had been kind to Margaret. He took her hand and looked in her eyes, then gravely kissed her on the forehead. "We must be friends, Margaret," he said. "I know how much my boy loves you, and you are going to take his mother's place in my family." There was the same curious quality of careful deliberation as usual – the old absence of any touch of spontaneity – the same weighing out of just the right measure; but he was obviously sincere. He looked on her young beauty with a kindly liking, and answered the appeal in her eyes by taking her hand between both his and pressing it gently. Margaret looked round to Jenny with a smile of glad shy triumph. Amyas came and put his arm through his father's.

"We three are going to be jolly good friends," he said.

Far more stately was the next ceremonial – the one that was, by my stipulation, to follow a few days later; yet I am afraid that we at Breysgate did not take Lady Sarah's coming half so seriously as she took it herself. She had disapproved of us so strongly before there was – to her knowledge at least – any good ground for disapproval that her later censures, however well-grounded, had lost weight. Sinners cannot take much to heart the blame of those who have always expected to see them do wrong and come to grief – and clapped themselves on the back as good prophets over the event!

Here was no private interview. The whole of her adherents surrounded Jenny in the big drawing-room. Lady Sarah was announced by Loft – himself highly conscious of the ceremonial nature of the occasion. With elaborate courtesy Jenny walked to the door to meet her, spoke her greeting, and led her to one of two large arm-chairs placed close to one another; it was really like the meeting of a pair of monarchs, lately at war but bound to appear unconscious of the disagreeable incidents of the strife. Now peace was to be patched up by marriage. Margaret was called from her place in the surrounding circle. She came – and with courage. We had, I fear, deliberately worked her up to the resolution of being, from the very beginning, not afraid of Lady Sarah – pointing out that any signs of fear now would foreshadow and entail slavery for life. "You'll get on much better if you stand up for yourself," Amyas himself assured her.

Margaret stood, awaiting welcome. Lady Sarah put on her eyeglasses, made a careful inspection of her prospective niece, but offered no comment whatever on her appearance. She dropped the glasses from her nose again, and remarked, "I'm glad to become acquainted with you. I'm sure that you intend to make Amyas a good wife and to do your duty in your new station. Kiss me!" She turned her cheek to Margaret, who achieved the salute with grace but, it must be confessed, without enthusiasm. Lady Sarah did not return it.

"There will be a great deal to do and think of at Oxley," she pursued, "but I shall be very glad to assist you in every way."

"But there'll be nothing to do, Lady Sarah. Jenny's doing everything – every single thing."

"I'm going to give them a few sticks to start housekeeping on," said Jenny, with a lurking smile.

"Old houses have a style of their own; one learns it by living in one," Lady Sarah observed. Oxley was old – so was Fillingford Manor. Breysgate was hardly middle-aged in comparison. Lady Sarah cast a glance round its regrettable newness; Jenny's refurnishing had not availed to obliterate all traces of that.

"I'm not following this model," said Jenny. "I'm taking the best advice – though I'm sure Margaret will be very glad of anything you can tell her."

"Of course I shall, Lady Sarah. But the people Jenny's going to are really the best people in the trade – they know all about it."

"When you have seen the Manor – " Lady Sarah began impressively, but Lacey – who had been, the moment before, in lamentable difficulties between a yawn and a smile – cut in:

"Ah, now when shall she come and see the Manor?"

Lady Sarah was prepared with an invitation for the next day: that was another of the forms, to be carried out precisely, as Fillingford had undertaken. She turned to Jenny. "You've seen it, of course, Miss Driver?"

Jenny nodded serenely. Amyas flushed again – his fair skin betrayed every passing feeling – as he said, "We shall be delighted if we can induce Miss Driver to come, all the same."

"Oh, very delighted, very, I'm sure," agreed Lady Sarah.

"You'll enjoy showing it to Margaret all by yourself much better," said Jenny to Amyas. "I'll come another day soon, and have tea with Lady Sarah, if she'll let me."

"Very delighted, very," Lady Sarah repeated.

She rose to take leave; this time she did herself kiss Margaret on the cheek. I think we were all waiting to see whether, in her opinion, the terms of the treaty demanded a kiss for Jenny also. Lady Sarah decided in the negative; Jenny's particularly erect head, as she held out her hand, may have aided – and certainly welcomed – the conclusion. We escorted her to her carriage with most honorable ceremony. Then we sighed relief – save Chat, who had been, from a modest background, an admiring spectator of the scene. "She's not very effusive," said Chat, "but she has the grand manner, hasn't she, Mr. Austin?"

"I never knew what it really meant till to-day, Miss Chatters."

"She probably never hated anything so much in her whole life," Jenny remarked to me, when we were next alone together, "so it's really hardly fair to criticise her manner. But I rejoice from the bottom of my heart that she didn't think it necessary to kiss me."

"Since you escaped this time, I should think you might escape altogether."

"Well, the wedding day will be a point of danger," she reminded me, "but I'm pretty safe against its becoming habitual. We both hate the idea of it too much for that."

Then – a week later – came the public announcement, made duly and in due form in the Times and Herald: "Between Lord Lacey, son and heir of the Right Honorable the Earl of Fillingford, and Margaret, daughter of the late Leonard Octon, Esq." The sensation is not to be described. So many things were explained, so many mysteries cleared up! Folks knew now why Lacey had been so much at Breysgate, Sir John Aspenick learned for whom Oxley Lodge was wanted, and Cartmell understood why he had been forced to disburse that much grudged five hundred pounds for early possession. For, with the announcement, came an inspired leading article, revealing the main terms of the proposed settlement; a little discretion was exercised as to the exact figures, but enough was said to show that, besides the gift of the Oxley Grange estate as it stood, there were large sums to pass both now and in the future. Let the parties have been who they might, such a transaction would have commanded the universal attention of the countryside; when it took place between Lord Fillingford's heir and the late Mr. Octon's only daughter, people with memories recalled and retold their stories, and found newcomers ready indeed to listen. Once again Jenny filled all Catsford and all the neighborhood with gossip, speculation, and applause.

"I told you you'd have to undo the purse-strings to some style," I said to Cartmell. "What do you think of this, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer?"

He winked his eye at me solemnly. "It's great," he said. "What a mind she has! There she'll sit at Breysgate – with the town under one foot, and Fillingford and Oxley under the other!"

"Hardly that!" I smiled.

"Look what she's giving now! Aye, and, my boy, think of what she's still got left to give! If human nature goes on being what it's been ever since I remember, Miss Driver's word will be law in both those houses – if not now, in a few years at all events. It's a lot of money – but it's not ill-spent. It makes her the queen of the place, Austin!" He laughed in enjoyment. "I wish old Nick Driver could see this! He'd be proud of his daughter."

"However much or little that may be the result, I'm sure it was not her object."

He looked at me with a good-humored pity; he thought me a fool in practical matters. "Have that as you like," he said, "but she won't object to the result – nor waste it, either – I promise you." He chuckled again. "She's got back at them with a vengeance!"

It was true. Never even in the days before the flight did she make such a figure. The Aspenicks surrendered at discretion, Fillingford Manor was in forced alliance, Oxley Lodge was annexed; Hingston did not hold out long, and Dormer, placated by a big price for his farms, put his pride and his sulks where he had put the money. The town was at Jenny's feet, even if it were an exaggeration to say that it was under them. Timeservers bowed the knee to so much power; the charitable accepted so splendid an atonement. If any still had conscientious doubts, Alison's conduct was invoked as warrant and example. If he were enthusiastically for the mistress of Breysgate now, who had a right to criticise – who could arrogate to himself such merit as would entitle him to refuse to forgive – even though a certain feature in the arrangement made it forever impossible to forget?

The chorus of applause was loud – and almost unanimous; but it was broken by the voice of one sturdy dissenter – one to whom interest could not appeal and, even had she wanted anything of Jenny, would have appealed vainly – one on whom the sentimental side had no effect, since both her sentiment and her charity moved in the strait fetters of unbending rules. Mrs. Jepps was rigid and obstinate. She had not fallen to the temptation of using the park road, as Lady Aspenick had: she would not now bow the knee to Baal, however splendid and imposing a deity Baal might be. Many had a try at shaking her – and Alison among the rest. He told me about his effort, laughing as he confessed his failure.

"I was well snubbed. She told me that Romish practices led to Romish principles, and that where they led it was easy to see; but that she for her part had other principles and didn't palter with them. When it suited Miss Driver to explain, she was ready to listen. Till then – nothing to do with the woman!"

Jenny heard of this – her one signal failure (for she had extorted alliance, if not loyalty, from Lady Sarah) with composure, almost with pleasure, although pleasure of an unusual variety.

"Well, I respect Mrs. Jepps," she said, "and I wish very much that she wouldn't deprive herself of her drives in the park. I'd promise not to bow to her! Mrs. Jepps is good for me, Austin – a fat, benevolent, disapproving old skeleton at the feast – a skeleton with such fat horses! – crying out 'You did it, you did it!' That's rather useful to me, I expect. Still I should like " – she smiled mischievously – "to try her virtue a little higher – with an invitation to the laying of the foundation stone! I'm going to have that in four or five months, and Mr. Bindlecombe is angling for a prince to do it. If Mrs. Jepps holds out against the prince, she has my leave to hold out against me forever!"